Warning: this is a long one...2 countries worth of stories :)
The first day in vietnam I was welcomed by my family and our tour guide named Fat ( or in the words of Don Friedman..."Fat boy") the ironic part is he was skinny! We take a van over the bridge where I was first introduced to thousands of motorbikes. I have never seen so many of these things in my life! It was like being in NYC traffic except all the cars are motorbikes! We shortly get to our 5 star hotel where I am in shock because the words 5 and star hadn't been in my budget the whole trip. By that point it was time for lunch and if it hadn't been for my newly found adventurous palate, we probs would have ended up at KFC. After a hearty vietnamese lunch we ventured to get dresses made. I was told there would be tons of stores that could custom make literally any dress as long as I had pictures...that was only half true. They got the sundress down to a tee, but the BCBG dress needs work! Next up: a war museum, the hard rock cafe, and in search of pepto bismal for mom. Charades came in handy at the pharmacy until they tried to give her acid reflux meds for an upset stomach!
That night we went to another vietnamese restaurant for dinner, but I'd have to say, crossing the street was more exciting then that meal! That's partly because there are no cross walks in vietnam and ur saposed to just slowly cross in the middle of traffic as the motorbikes dodge around people!
After dinner I managed to drag dad and matt to a famous bar called Apocalypse to meet up with pretty much all of semester at sea...it was a great night!
The next day we met our tour guide bright and early to go see the Cuchi tunnels...aka the enemy tunnels. We got to not only crawl through the tunnels where vietnamese people lived for over 20 years, but dad and matt also got to shoot an M16!
After that adventure we decided to take another through the streets around our hotel in search of lunch. I was in search of more vietnamese food, but somehow we ended up at a Japanese sushi restaurant...go figure! The rest of the afternoon was spent at markets where we found a replica of my ship (I guess they know semester at sea pretty well), DVDs for literally 50 cents, all the usual fake stuff, and of course a traditional vietnamese hat (the triangle looking ones with the chin strap). That was the first time I got to show off my new found bargaining skills to dad and he was so impressed he had me doing all the bargaining for the family!
That night I took the friedman family to the ship for dinner...they were quite impressed with life style for the semester.
The next day we woke up early and flew to Siem Reip, Cambodia! This country was literally the easiest visa process ever.... I walked in the airport in Cambodia, paid $20, gave a passport picture, waited 5 min. And voila....I'm allowed to be in Cambodia!
It was a short drive and great scenery to our hotel. We were driving on a newly paved road and all along the way seeing 5 star hotel after 5 star hotel. Our tour guide told us there used to only be 5 hotels and now there's about 150!
We were greeted at the hotel with a green "welcome drink"....we're not sure what it was, but we were sure it tasted funny! The hotel was incredible! The hotel itself was open air and very spacious, but the rooms were enclosed with air conditioning thank goodness! After walking past the front lobby, There was the most incredible, huge blue pool surrounded by lots of greenery and big comfy lounge chairs.
The two days in Siem Reip were spent sight seeing 5 temples, a dinner show, and a ship where silver was hand carved. The 5 temples literally looked like they came out of movies. One temple known as "the jungle temple" was actually used in the movie Tomb Raiders. All of the temples we saw were hand made from lava and sand stone thousands and thousands of years ago! Today they are sadly falling apart, but they are doing their best to restore them. The temples were either buddhist or hindu and mostly used today for tourists, though there were buddhist shrines in a few for people to pray and wish good luck on their family and friends. The last temple was we saw was Ankor Wat (aka a world wonder). This was by far the best of the 5 we saw! There was a long walkway over a moat to get to the temple before we hit the intricately carved entrance. I thought the entrance was pretty cool, after walking through and seeing the temple, I thought twice. It was 3 stories high and more intricately carved than the entrance. Words can't even describe how awesome this temple was!
We flew back to vietnam after our short trip to cambodia and had one day left to visit another world wonder...the Mekong Delta (the 7th longest river in the world!). We ended up having a small boat meant for 12 people just for our family and 2 tour guides! First we stopped at a coconut harvesting place where we learned they use coconuts for everything...including to make a lamp! We tried interesting fruits like one that looked kinda like a grape, but it had a shell in the inside and a big black seed on the inside. Next we took a horse drawn open carriage to a small family business where they make and sell Honey. They also had a huge snake for us to hold, but we said no thanks...friedmans and snakes don't mix well. After some sweet hot tea and a small game of vietnamese hacky sack we headed back to the delta but this time on small gandela like boats. We split up 3 and 3 and took the small boats back to our original boat. Next stop was learning how to make coconut candy...or rather watching people make coconut candy and us buying it. The last stop on the delta was lunch where the greeter was a huge water buffalo tied to the ground through a string in its nose! Ouch!
we sit at a table under a grass hut surrounded by a dirty moat and lots of greenery. 5 min later we see some one walking towards us with a deep fried fish held upright with 4 pegs. Literally they had pulled a fish from their pond, stuck the WHOLE thing in the deep fryer and served the WHOLE fish teeth and all to us! Surprisingly it was quite tasty!
The rest of the time I had that day with the fam. Was spent a another market of course. I found more DVDs while mom talked dad into buying place mats. Little did they know the place where I bought my DVDs had just taken my credit card somewhere to be charged...dad didn't like hearing that! I was soon after that being dragged across 3 busy intersections by a girl younger than me to get my credit card. She literally would grab my arm and lead me through the traffic of motorbike to get my credit card and then back again. It all happened so fast that my parents didn't even realize I was gone!
Well that's how the Friedman's do Vietnam and Cambodia...and if you cant smell it already, look out for india next!
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
ni hao ya'll
We began our China travels in the well known city oh Shanghai...this was such a cool city! Our ship docked right in the middle of the city and overlooked two giant glass sphere shaped buildings that looked like the world and a tall needle looking building in the middle.
We hit the streets as soon as we could and eventually stumbled upon a street full of restaurants. This wasn't just any old quiet street of restaurants...all the workers were standing out side waving and yelling at us to come into their restaurant. It was like being in the mall when all the chinese restaurants want you to try their food.
After lunch we walked around a main shopping area in desparate search of a cheap market. Little did we know that they didn't really exist where we were so we went to plan B....following the random chinese people who would come up and sketchly show us pictures of fake watches and purses..."You like you like"!
We were in a big group and figured if something went wrong we (or atleast the big guys we were with) could take em down...they're little people anyway. The back allys turned out to be a HUGE success! One sketchy room after another full of Louis, Prada, Gucci, Fendi, ...you name it! They even had nike, uggs, Polo, and North Face! We ended up meeting some students who were studying abroad in shanghai and gave us the low down on the goods in the back allys...they said some of it was def. Real and some were just really good copies.
We ended up meeting up with the students studying abroad in shanghai at an all you can eat and drink sushi place later that night. If its any indication of how the night was...there were 20 college students singing the national anthem before we left. But of course the all u can drink place wasn't enough fun for us college students so we headed to a club called Muse2. The funny part behind this. Is that there was a bar in japan called Muse that we got lost trying to find and were disappointed when we did to find out that it wasn't some crazy club. Muse2 was a different story and had tons of crazy lights and loud music... We LOVED it!
The next day started our 6 day Semester at Sea sponsored trip to xi'an (pronounced shian) and Beijing and ending in Hong Kong to meet our ship. This trip was amazing! First we flew to Xi'an and got right off the plane to learn how to write some chinese caligraphy. Then we headed to our hotel for a quick change and off to our dumpling diner where we tried 18 different kinds of dumplings! The sad part is I only liked about 3 of them :(. The next day we went to go see the xi'an city wall, a mosque, and a an old bazaar. I quickly learned the art of bargaining when I tried to buy a northface jacket. The guy started at 60usd and I got him down to 40usd...I had given in and was going to pay that amount when I realized I only had 30usd with me. Thank goodness for the chinese new year! A girl with me looks at him and says "oh come on its the new year!" He said "ok happy new year!"... Great success!
The next part of our day was by far the best when we saw the Terracotta warriors! For those unfamiliar ...these warriors were discovered by a random chinese farmer in the 70's and now the government has taken over and made a museum out of them all. These warriors were built by artists hired by the first emperor of china to protect his tomb. He literally had an entire army (as in like 5000+ ) of these statues made! Most of the statues have been uncovered, but there are still more to be found!
After the warriors we went to visit an orphanage where we played with the kids, watched a show they performed for us, and left them presents. Next stop...Tang Dynasty Dinner show. This was a dinner and show mimicking how royalty durning the tang dynast would have eaten diner.
That night we wondered around the streets in search of a good bar, but none were to be found. Instead, a fireworks show by locals in the city streets of xi'an! Literally these people would light the most amazing fireworks in the middle of the street with tall buildings and powerlines all around and cars passing by! That would not fly in the US!
The next day we flew to Beijing and stayed there for 3nights. We saw Tiennemen Square, the forbidden city, the bird's nest in the olympic village, and how to make silk in one day. For those wondering, the bird's nest was transformed into a winter wonderland for kids to sled, ice skate, and watch shows. Another day we saw kung fu masters, my personal favorite: the great wall of china, and a chinese acrobatic show!
I have to say we cheated getting up to the great wall of china...we took the cable car up :). BUT we did get some pretty sweet pics from the cable car! We walked about a mile on the wall and then got to toboggan down!! it was this giant silver slide looking thing that twisted and turned all the way to the bottom and we had our own toboggans that we could control how fast or slow we went. Of course we all chose to speed down the whole way even though the guards would tell us to slow down! Oops!
That night was the chinese acrobatic show and it was incredible! Tons of chinese men doing flips and stackings 4 and 5 high of people! And then the girls would come out and do crazy things like make a 4 person high pyramid while doing handstands on each other!
Early the next morning (as in 3:45am early!) We left for Hong Kong to meet our ship. Our ship was docked right in the middle of the city and at a mall! And not just any mall...it was the biggest mall in hong kong with hundreds of stores! And of course they weren't just any stores...they were all designer names....Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Faragamo, Polo...pretty much every single expensive brand that exists in the world!
That night we went out to the coolest bar district ever! It was called Lan Kwai Fung (I think that's the name, if not its pretty close). It was this long street solely lined with bars and clubs! Most def. A sight to see!
Well that's all I got for China! Check back for my travels around Vietnam in the next few days!
We hit the streets as soon as we could and eventually stumbled upon a street full of restaurants. This wasn't just any old quiet street of restaurants...all the workers were standing out side waving and yelling at us to come into their restaurant. It was like being in the mall when all the chinese restaurants want you to try their food.
After lunch we walked around a main shopping area in desparate search of a cheap market. Little did we know that they didn't really exist where we were so we went to plan B....following the random chinese people who would come up and sketchly show us pictures of fake watches and purses..."You like you like"!
We were in a big group and figured if something went wrong we (or atleast the big guys we were with) could take em down...they're little people anyway. The back allys turned out to be a HUGE success! One sketchy room after another full of Louis, Prada, Gucci, Fendi, ...you name it! They even had nike, uggs, Polo, and North Face! We ended up meeting some students who were studying abroad in shanghai and gave us the low down on the goods in the back allys...they said some of it was def. Real and some were just really good copies.
We ended up meeting up with the students studying abroad in shanghai at an all you can eat and drink sushi place later that night. If its any indication of how the night was...there were 20 college students singing the national anthem before we left. But of course the all u can drink place wasn't enough fun for us college students so we headed to a club called Muse2. The funny part behind this. Is that there was a bar in japan called Muse that we got lost trying to find and were disappointed when we did to find out that it wasn't some crazy club. Muse2 was a different story and had tons of crazy lights and loud music... We LOVED it!
The next day started our 6 day Semester at Sea sponsored trip to xi'an (pronounced shian) and Beijing and ending in Hong Kong to meet our ship. This trip was amazing! First we flew to Xi'an and got right off the plane to learn how to write some chinese caligraphy. Then we headed to our hotel for a quick change and off to our dumpling diner where we tried 18 different kinds of dumplings! The sad part is I only liked about 3 of them :(. The next day we went to go see the xi'an city wall, a mosque, and a an old bazaar. I quickly learned the art of bargaining when I tried to buy a northface jacket. The guy started at 60usd and I got him down to 40usd...I had given in and was going to pay that amount when I realized I only had 30usd with me. Thank goodness for the chinese new year! A girl with me looks at him and says "oh come on its the new year!" He said "ok happy new year!"... Great success!
The next part of our day was by far the best when we saw the Terracotta warriors! For those unfamiliar ...these warriors were discovered by a random chinese farmer in the 70's and now the government has taken over and made a museum out of them all. These warriors were built by artists hired by the first emperor of china to protect his tomb. He literally had an entire army (as in like 5000+ ) of these statues made! Most of the statues have been uncovered, but there are still more to be found!
After the warriors we went to visit an orphanage where we played with the kids, watched a show they performed for us, and left them presents. Next stop...Tang Dynasty Dinner show. This was a dinner and show mimicking how royalty durning the tang dynast would have eaten diner.
That night we wondered around the streets in search of a good bar, but none were to be found. Instead, a fireworks show by locals in the city streets of xi'an! Literally these people would light the most amazing fireworks in the middle of the street with tall buildings and powerlines all around and cars passing by! That would not fly in the US!
The next day we flew to Beijing and stayed there for 3nights. We saw Tiennemen Square, the forbidden city, the bird's nest in the olympic village, and how to make silk in one day. For those wondering, the bird's nest was transformed into a winter wonderland for kids to sled, ice skate, and watch shows. Another day we saw kung fu masters, my personal favorite: the great wall of china, and a chinese acrobatic show!
I have to say we cheated getting up to the great wall of china...we took the cable car up :). BUT we did get some pretty sweet pics from the cable car! We walked about a mile on the wall and then got to toboggan down!! it was this giant silver slide looking thing that twisted and turned all the way to the bottom and we had our own toboggans that we could control how fast or slow we went. Of course we all chose to speed down the whole way even though the guards would tell us to slow down! Oops!
That night was the chinese acrobatic show and it was incredible! Tons of chinese men doing flips and stackings 4 and 5 high of people! And then the girls would come out and do crazy things like make a 4 person high pyramid while doing handstands on each other!
Early the next morning (as in 3:45am early!) We left for Hong Kong to meet our ship. Our ship was docked right in the middle of the city and at a mall! And not just any mall...it was the biggest mall in hong kong with hundreds of stores! And of course they weren't just any stores...they were all designer names....Burberry, Louis Vuitton, Faragamo, Polo...pretty much every single expensive brand that exists in the world!
That night we went out to the coolest bar district ever! It was called Lan Kwai Fung (I think that's the name, if not its pretty close). It was this long street solely lined with bars and clubs! Most def. A sight to see!
Well that's all I got for China! Check back for my travels around Vietnam in the next few days!
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